The People vs. Keith Jardine

As he usually does, Keith
Jardine will jog into Saturday’s Octagon appointment -- this
time against Quinton
Jackson -- against a soundtrack of silence.

No one boos Jardine, exactly, but no one really cheers for him. Ask
how he invites apathy, and no one will be able to articulate
why.

He’s hardly a reluctant slugger: He’ll wade in and get dirty, as he
did against Chuck
Liddell. He’s not a braggart, not a reformed street thug with a
mouth bigger than his ability. He holds wins over three of the
biggest names in the 205-pound division: former champion Liddell,
former champion Forrest
Griffin and Brandon
Vera.

1. He hears the final bell nearly 50 percent of the time. There are
no spectacular finishes in the Jardine arsenal: If he’s going to
win, it’s likely going to be because he sucks you into a war of
attrition, taxing your conditioning and earning the victory by
unraveling a few more feet of guts.

Put more succinctly: He don’t win pretty.

2. He’s been broken before. If Jardine’s roughhouse style remained
unsolved, there would be some mystery -- as in the case of Lyoto
Machida -- as to whether this fight will be the one in which
he’s figured out.

Jeff Sherwood/Sherdog.com

"Rampage" Jackson will be
the biggest test of
Keith Jardine's career.

Instead, he’s suffered abrupt batterings that have made him look
like Peter McNeely to his opponent’s Tyson. Houston
Alexander made him forget the entirety of third grade; Wanderlei
Silva used his head for batting practice. There’s no aura
surrounding his methodology. He’s talented but not immune to a
primitive bee-swarm of an attack.

3. He’s kind of a bore. Not necessarily athletically, but in
general. In a sport full of big archetypes, he looks the part of a
Hell’s Angel on parole: nasty, frightening, prone to clubbing
people with a plumber’s wrench.

But that’s about where the color ends. His attitude isn’t
particularly intimidating. (Seems like a pretty pleasant guy,
actually.) He doesn’t say anything to make the audience love him or
hate him. As a result, there’s not much emotional investment in the
outcome. If he beats Jackson, hey, he’s delivered the upset special
on a platter before. If he doesn’t, it’s just the latest in a line
of losses that didn’t shake anyone’s ground.

Bizarrely, it’s this kind of collective public coma that makes me
want to root for the guy. Jardine puts in his hours at Greg
Jackson’s gym in Albuquerque, sweats and bleeds in just as much
volume as anyone in the sport and enjoys few of the fringe
benefits. I’ve yet to see him endorse a corporate giant (Rashad
Evans and Microsoft), bag the ring card girl (do your own
research) or throw an after-party (everyone else).

Maybe his lack of a niche is his niche: the blue-collar guy
who doesn’t feel the need to invent a persona or take big risks in
order to rally a following. He goes to the gym and does his job: no
fanfare, no fireworks, little attention. That’s 95 percent of the
working population.

I doubt much would change if he goes on to beat Jackson Saturday.
It puts him on the fast track to nowhere, as he and Evans have
already declared they would never fight each other. Jardine could
go on to defeat the majority of the UFC’s light heavyweights and
probably never be a substantial ticket draw.

Is it too bad? That depends on Jardine. We’re too quick to assume
that everyone in the sport clamors for the accompanying attention
and ego inflation. In some cases, athletes enjoy the competition --
and the relative anonymity of flying under the radar.